


the tale of a martyr child

by ravenhoes



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Crying, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Neil is having a bad time y'all, POV Second Person, Unreliable Narrator, neil: feeling quesadilla but the que and illa are silent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25812343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenhoes/pseuds/ravenhoes
Summary: Neil Josten had a dream last night. Maybe he had two. Maybe he had three.He could count all the ways in which he has become a martyr, but he won't.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	the tale of a martyr child

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me in a dream don't blame me blame the dream.
> 
> Honestly I should not be writing this because I have that kandreil fic i haven't finished yet and also this isn't even edited but Who Even Cares anymore. Hope you cry with this one.

You are on the floor, silent, hidden between the bed and the wall, the lies you told are choking you; they have always choked you. This is why you spit them out when you feel you are suffocating, but it won't last— the more you lie, the more you swallow, the more you choke.

You are on the floor, forcing yourself to breathe, knees tucked inside your chest and your chest feeling heavy, and it feels as if a knife were pressing against it but there is no knife; you would know, you remember the sensation too well.

You had a dream last night; there was a woman with a knife and a sharper smile. You were shorter than you are, in the dream. Or perhaps she was taller than she is. She controlled the gravity of the pain you felt, and you tried to climb —you always try to climb— but you fell either way.

It's nothing new. Falling. You fell for a boy who kisses you and leaves and doesn't care. It's better that way, because in less than a month you will be gone— Neil Josten will be gone, and Andrew Minyard will be mildly inconvenienced probably, but not hurt. You have been told you're a martyr, but you were never told to stop. So you will get over yourself and your inevitable death, and pretend, because you were taught to pretend and you're good at it. You will get kissed and you will play the sport you love as if you were allowed to. You were never good at following rules, anyway, and even when you will have to, when the countdown reaches 0, you can still pretend until the time comes; you will keep running with time aiming at your toes, and when it finally fires, you will be smiling as you always were.

Ironically now you are silent, hidden between the bed and the wall with nothing to hold your pieces together. There's no tears, but you haven't cried since you were fifteen. 

You had a dream last night. There was a man, and he looked like you, but you don't want to know about that. He cut the ropes behind your skin, he shot you and he shot Andrew, even though it's silly; the man and Andrew have never met. 

You want so much. You want too bad. You don't know what you are doing half the time. You want to be tucked inside a blanket and be allowed to feel some warmth; you want all clocks to pause because you want to breathe. You are choking again. Have you ever breathed correctly, since the date of your birth? You do know something, and that is the fact that you will never breathe correctly again. You will be cold and pulseless and alone before you get there. But it's fine, it's done. 

These days, though, Andrew helps you breathe a little better. Good thing he doesn't need you to help him. The cool spark of hope you hold in your heart is stupid and embarrassing, because Andrew would never need your help to breathe. Expecting a reciprocation has no point other than to lighten the way down to the hell that's been coming for you for a long time.

But you, stupid child. You still hold a spark of hope in your heart. It burns more than the rest of you, and it will turn your body to ashes when you realize how stupid you were for believing someone would care about you in that wonderful way. 

You wonder why you are trembling so much. 

You had a dream last night. You were in a motel somewhere in Alaska, and your mother was smoking next to the window. You had just been shot, so after you were healed by a mysterious contact of your mother's, she held you in her lap and sang a song you don't remember. You always say she was never tender, and she was never soft, and you wonder if these memories you have of her are real or just another delusion born out of pointless hope. But you dreamt of her last night, and in the dream it was that moment before the sun comes out, when time doesn't really exist.

"I almost died tonight," you whispered. It was safe to admit so, because there was only your mother and the birds who knew you were not as indestructible as you tell everyone you are. "I almost stopped existing."

Your mother nodded. You still remember smoke coming out of her mouth like a dragon. Firebrand women were always those who you admired the most.

"Death is strange," your mother said, in one of her rare moments of vulnerability. Her voice had the magic and oddness only dreams can have. "It's definitive, but not absolute. If you had died, I would've burned your body, I would've buried your bones, and you would be part of the earth, where trees grow, so animals can eat."

You hope that when your father kills you, he buries your bones. You don't want to disappoint your mother, so you will fight if you can, but you cannot bring yourself to run away. You don't want to disappoint Andrew, so you will keep being kissed and left alone and told you're nothing even when you want so much to be something more, but you will die eventually, and Andrew will soon have the memories of kissing another dead boy. You don't want to disappoint Kevin, so you will play like you could make it to Court but you won't do anything else other than play. And so you will choose to wait for your final act and your inevitable death as you disappoint yourself.

"For every creature that lives," your mother told you, "it is required a sacrifice."

With your shoulder healed but mind not yet, you asked, "Why would anyone want to sacrifice themselves for someone else?"

Your mother gave you a bitter smile. The sun had begun to rise. "Sacrifices require a choice. They require not expecting a reward; if you don't expect it, you will surely get it."

It was a comforting dream. But now you're on the floor, between the bed and the wall, and you don't know when it started, but you are nineteen and you are crying on the floor.

There's a knock on your door.

"Josten." It's Andrew. He must want kisses, you think. 

"I'm here," you tell him. "I'm alone."

So he enters the room.

"Why are you on the floor," he says, flat voice because he doesn't care.

"I fell," you tell him the truth even if it feels like a lie.

"Why are you crying," he says, flat voice with a hint of annoyance because you're ruining the time you have alone. You are crying on the floor when you could be kissing Andrew. Stupid child.

"I'm fine," you lie, you swallow the truth, you choke.

This is not a sacrifice; this is a slaughter. But you will choose to take it again and again. You will stay, because Neil Josten stays. Neil Josten hopes. Neil Josten will eventually be able to breathe, even if Nathaniel will not.


End file.
